2. amps-preamps
  3. 1040827979

Has anyone tried SET tubes amps with maggie 1.6's

My long time ss amp died a few weeks ago, and I only had a tiny integrated, single ended pentode, 5 watt tube amp on hand, to run my maggie 1.6's. To my astonishment it worked!

The manufacturer of this tiny SET is no longer in business: Wright audio, there were 2 companies with the same name, this one was out of Seattle.

Of course the musical picture is not quite complete. There is a noticeable lack of punchy bass and dynamics are softened compared with a Plinius 8200 mk2 that I auditioned not long ago (of course that has 175 ss watts compared to 5 watts with my tube SEP).

However that aside, the sound is actually quite loud enough and the realism is nothing less than startling. Femal voices, for instance, have a warmth, body, tenderness, emotion and silky transparancy that melts your heart and often brings me to tears. Strings are rendered with a rich silky transparancy as well. Horns, woodwinds, and guitars seem to posses an extra dimension that is uncanny.

As you might suspect, when the music gathers to a complex transient pitch, the instruments muddy as the amp clips. And there is a bit of sibilance from time to time. Also the piano losses its authority as the all-over dynamics are restricted. The sound stage also softens somewhat and losses its potential perception of real depth.

However the sound reminds me of the new iteration of the older British Quads, the 998, which I heard recently. In fact the maggies with this SEP amp sounds better, more involving.

I should mention that I modified my maggies by using large Hovland capacitors, and huge copper coil inductors from Alpha Core, in place of the standard ones, which might be contributing to the maggies all over sense of refinement here.

I would deeply appreciate it, if anyone in our audiophile community, has had experience with an SET amp that had/has a bit more power than my 5 watt SEP, and what your results were on the maggie 1.6's. Especially in the area of dynamics, and low level resolution of complex musical passages.

If there is a not-to-terribly expensive SET amp that might work for the 1.6's, I will stop my search for an ss amp (which up until now is somewhat disapointing because of hardness of strings and the lack of real warmth to voices) and concentrate on auditioning SET's.

I would like to thank everyone in advance for your help and idease which I deeply appreciate.
america
america OP
25 posts
 
Yes Eldartford,

I can see that the idea of using an "underpowered" amp must seem to you like an exercise in futility. Granted.

But what is going on here is an attempt to find the limits of what a modest, but beautifully crafted amp will do, with a supposedly "difficult to drive" speaker like the maggies 1.6.

Think of it as an experiment...we audiophiles need to cultivate a little tolerance. If only to allow the "spirit" of experimentation to thrive...exactly like the designers of the audio products we love do, when they set out to see if they can reinvent an existing topology.

Best-Richard
blw
147 posts
 
I'm having a hard time comprehending what I'm reading, since it doesn't seem to match up with my experiences at all.

When I auditioned Maggie 3.6's, the dealer used a CJ Premier 17LS preamp and MV55 or MV60 power amp. At moderate volume, it was dreadfully obvious that the power amp was simply out of gas. The room was not large but did have a fairly high ceiling (12'?), although a lot of it was pretty live. And I didn't play almost anything that would call the maximum from the power amp, just a couple of fairly deep bass notes from a synthesizer. Now these are 3.6's, but they are spec'ed within 1dB of the 1.6s, and the 50+ wpc was clearly and obviously not enough. From what I heard, I don't think this is really an opinion - it was fact. But then, other folks seem to like it.

I'm also floored at the notion of running Martin Logans with SETs. My room is small (14x15) and my ML mains regularly pull at least 50-100W peaks out of my amps (and I'm measuring this, I'm not guessing even though my amps don't have meters). I can't imagine how even a 20W SET could fail to run out of gas. This is especially true since I am using a powerful sub to augment the bass.

Don't get me wrong - I understand the magic of SETs driving these planar speakers - but my experiences with them, especially with those 3.6's, is that anything except chamber music simply pulls too much power.
america OP
25 posts
 
Hi Blw,

I think you suggested very clearly the limits of low powered SET amps or low powered SS amps like the beloved Pass Labs Alpha 3's (for example) when using them with planar and electrostatic speakers.

There are several thoughts I would like to share with you. One is that you are quite right that the music being listened to will certainly determine how well this type of amp will perform. The size of the room, the position of the listner to the speakers (nearness), and even the hour that the music is being heard. Late at night, the so-called "normal" parameters of most listners can change radically.

To illustrate this point, many years ago I built a rather full size Clavichord from a kit (Zuckermann). It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. As you may know the clavichord was not used for concerts (primarily) but rather for composition...Bach, for instance and Mozart (late at night!) used the clavichord to compose with. The clavichord uses tangents that stick up at the end of the (exposed) keys and strick copper strings stretched over them (allowing the player to "attenuate" the sound and even to change pitch). The sound is indescribable...the overtone "structure" far exceeds the piano by a substantial order of magnitude.

However...unless one listens to this instrument late at night or in extraordinary quiet circumstances what is heard seems rather insubstantial...nothing could be farther from the truth however.

A cousin of mine once visited me during the day to "hear" the clavichord which I played for him, first warning him that (sound) conditions were not ideal (read: too much noise!). He listened attentively and then gave me his judgdement: thin, insubstantial, lacking in dynamics, uninvolving and so on.

This same cousin visited me several years later...late at night! Again I played for him on the clavichord...his jaw dropped in wonder and surprise. He characterized the sound as "having the quality of human flesh...my whole body resonates like I myself am being played." He never forgot that experience.

Best-Richard
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